A grayish afternoon of September, our bus was lunging steps from Senator on the n-th device of Beijing in destination in Datong.
First completely clogged - national leave require- then totally deserted once outside Beijing - like many Chinese highways-, First, the axis runs through the mountain belt which surrounds the capital and there are remnants of the great wall that once protected Beijing from invaders. Today this same mountain belt is used primarily to hold pollution. Once arrived on the plateau, outpost of Inner Mongolia, the landscape changes significantly : yellowish land out of sight, where painfully grow corn or wheat plants, and where a few rivers draw kind of mini-canyons. Another mountain belt serves as background where one sometimes sees a temple.

Shanxi is an area that grew around the coal mining, and on the track railway that runs largely along the highway, huge coal trains are headed for Beijing, drawn by two locomotives at the front and two others in the middle of the convoy (locomotives supplied by Alstom).

Datong, Let us input, There is not much to it. Besides that it is above all a city of industry heavy, local government is put at the top of “restore” the historic centre. Restore to the Chinese meaning : shaving blank and rebuild pseudo-style Qing way sets Eurodisney pulp cardboard buildings. The walls of the city therefore have the particularity to contain parking (as it is practical !) and temples host fairs where car and home appliance brands are presented. On the other hand, in the Park near the bus station, the rides have remained in their juices of the years 70 and give an appearance “tchenobylesque” at this location (also I believe that I have enough material for a dedicated article). Also luck that our passage coincides with the “braderie in Datong”, kind of Lille braderie less Belgian beer plus hundreds of decibels (each shop and each stand mounts a sound system with a Chinese who in braille. Each store). For the anecdote, also include a restaurant “Chic” where the chairs are huge armchairs, offering almost all varieties of beer Baltika, thing I had ever seen even in St. Petersburg.

For memory :

Baltika nº0 without alcohol (Yes it exists in Russia !)
Baltika nº2 "Svetloe".
Baltika nº3 "classic". (as of the Kro)
Baltika nº4 "Originalnoe.
Baltika nº5 'Zolotoe. (Amber)
Baltika 7 «Eksportnoe». (a little stronger)
Baltika # 8 «Pchenitchnoe». (“unfiltered”, beer on Lees, my favorite)
Baltika nº9 'Krepkoe. (authentic beer bum)

Temples and mountains (and ladybugs)

What we came to was among others the suspended Temple (XuanKongSi), two hours of road through the countryside (hilly) Su Shanxi. The monks who built in the year 490 wanted to protect it from looters staying at cliff side in a steep-sided valley, an idea that has clearly borne fruit because it is still there more than fifteen centuries after (Although most of the current structure is most recent). Taking into account the affluence in these days of national holidays, It took the last kilometres on foot through the Valley populated by swarms of ladybugs (I could have statistics on the number of ladybugs on the basis of the number of points). Unfortunately the temple in him even was closed due to risk of falling rocks, but it was possible to get to the bottom of the Valley. Then we put the cap (a few kilometers by motorcycle-taxi) on the Heng Shan, one of the sacred mountains of Taoism. A cable car to climb the mountain without effort (except for the wallet…) and it is possible to walk between the temples perched in the mountains.

National holidays

In addition to that the Chinese are many, they all leave at the same time ! About ten days in October for national holidays and two weeks in February for the Chinese new year. In other words, It is difficult, or even impossible task to find tickets (of any means of transport whatsoever). Train tickets reserve 60 days in advance, so when the time comes, the trains are full for a long time. On the other hand bus tickets can be bought at the last moment, and we were able to get two seats to a Beijing-Datong. For the return, an online travel site showed available seats a train, or by going to the window, It turned out that these places were standing tickets ! Because in the cars “hard seats”, well, that bear their name, passengers without seat reservation travel stand… But what never mind, the station shop sells fishing stools ! By chance, in refreshing frantically ticket sales site, I saw that a car had been added and that 70 seats were on sale ! At the counter, an hour later, There were only ten…